Skin is primarily made of two layers. The outer layer, or epidermis, has a depth of approximately 100 μm. The inner layer, or dermis, has depth of approximately 3000 μm from the outer surface of the skin and is primarily composed of a network of fibrous protein known as collagen.
There is an increasing demand for repair of skin defects, which can be induced by aging, sun exposure, dermatological diseases, traumatic effects, and the like. Aging skin tends to lose its elasticity, leading to increased formation of wrinkles and sagging. Other causes of undesirable wrinkles in skin include excessive weight loss and pregnancy. There are several well-known surgical approaches to improving the appearance of skin that involve incisions being made in the skin followed by the removal of some tissue and rejoining of the remaining tissue. These surgical approaches include facelifts, brow lifts, breast lifts, and “tummy tucks.” Such approaches have many negative side effects including scar formation, long healing times, displacement of skin from its original location relative to the underlying bone structure, and nonuniform skin tightening.
Many treatments have been developed that use electromagnetic radiation to improve skin defects by inducing a thermal injury to the skin, which results in a complex wound healing response of the skin. This leads to a biological repair of the injured skin and may be accompanied by other desirable effects. Various techniques providing this objective have been introduced in recent years. The different techniques can be generally categorized in two groups of treatment modalities: ablative laser skin resurfacing (“LSR”) and non-ablative collagen remodeling (“NCR”). The first group of treatment modalities, LSR, includes causing fairly extensive thermal damage to the epidermis and/or dermis, while the second group, NCR, is designed to avoid thermal damage of the epidermis.
LSR is considered to be an effective laser treatment for repairing skin. In a typical LSR procedure, shown schematically in FIG. 1, a region of the epidermis 100 and a corresponding region of the dermis 110 beneath it are thermally damaged to promote wound healing. Electromagnetic energy 120 is directed towards a region of skin, ablating the skin and removing both epidermal and dermal tissue in region 130. LSR with pulsed CO2 or Er:YAG lasers, which may be referred to in the art as laser resurfacing or ablative resurfacing, is considered to be an effective treatment option for signs of photo aged skin, chronically aged skin, scars, superficial pigmented lesions, stretch marks, and superficial skin lesions. However, patients may experience major drawbacks after each LSR treatment, including edema, oozing, and burning discomfort during first fourteen (14) days after treatment. These major drawbacks can be unacceptable for many patients. A further problem with LSR procedures is that the procedures are relatively painful and therefore generally require an application of a significant amount of analgesia. While LSR of relatively small areas can be performed under local anesthesia provided by injection of an anestheticum, LSR of relatively large areas is frequently performed under general anesthesia or after nerve blockade by multiple injections of anesthetic.
A limitation of LSR is that ablative resurfacing in areas other than the face generally have a greater risk of scarring because the recovery from skin injury within these areas is not very effective. Further, LSR techniques are better suited for correction of pigmentation defects and small lesions than for reducing or eliminating wrinkles.
In an attempt to overcome the problems associated with LSR procedures, several types of NCR techniques has emerged. These techniques are variously referred to in the art as non-ablative resurfacing, non-ablative subsurfacing, or non-ablative skin remodeling. NCR techniques generally utilize non-ablative lasers, flashlamps, or radio frequency current to damage dermal tissue while sparing damage to the epidermal tissue. The concept behind NCR techniques is that thermal damage of the dermal tissue is thought to induce collagen shrinkage, leading to tightening of the skin above, and stimulation of wound healing which results in biological repair and formation of new dermal collagen. This type of wound healing can result in a decrease of structural damage related to photoaging. Avoidance of epidermal damage in NCR techniques decreases the severity and duration of treatment-related side effects. In particular, post-procedural oozing, crusting, pigmentary changes and incidence of infections due to prolonged loss of the epidermal barrier function can usually be avoided by using NCR techniques.
In the NCR method of skin treatment, illustrated schematically in FIG. 2, selective portions of dermal tissue 135 within the dermal layer 110 are heated to induce wound healing without damaging the epidermis 100 above. Selective dermal damage that leaves the epidermis undamaged can be achieved by cooling the surface of the skin and focusing electromagnetic energy 120, which may be a laser beam, onto dermal region 135 using lens 125. Other strategies are also applied using nonablative lasers to achieve damage to the dermis while sparing the epidermis in NCR treatment methods. Nonablative lasers used in NCR procedures generally have a deeper dermal penetration depth as compared to ablative lasers used in LSR procedures. Wavelengths in the near infrared spectrum can be used. These wavelengths cause the non-ablative laser to have a deeper penetration depth than the very superficially-absorbed ablative Er:YAG and CO2 lasers. Examples of NCR techniques and apparatus are disclosed by Anderson et al. in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2002/0161357.
While it has been demonstrated that these NCR techniques can assist in avoiding epidermal damage, one of the major drawbacks of these techniques is their limited efficacies. The improvement of photoaged skin or scars after the treatment with NCR techniques is significantly smaller than the improvements found when LSR ablative techniques are utilized. Even after multiple treatments, the clinical improvement is often far below the patient's expectations. In addition, clinical improvement is usually several months delayed after a series of treatment procedures. NCR is moderately effective for wrinkle removal and is generally not effective for dyschromia. One advantage of NCR is that it does not have the undesirable side effects that are characteristic of the LSR treatment, such as the risk of scarring or infection.
Another limitation of NCR procedures relates to the breadth of acceptable treatment parameters for safe and effective treatment of dermatological disorders. The NCR procedures generally rely on an optimum coordination of laser energy and cooling parameters, which can result in an unwanted temperature profile within the skin leading to either no therapeutic effect or scar formation due to the overheating of a relatively large volume of the tissue.
Another approach to skin tightening and wrinkle removal involves the application of radio frequency (“RF”) electrical current to dermal tissue via a cooled electrode at the surface of the skin. Application of RF current in this noninvasive manner results in a heated region developed below the electrode that damages a relatively large volume of the dermis, and epidermal damage is minimized by the active cooling of the surface electrode during treatment. This treatment approach can be painful, and can lead to short-term swelling of the treated area. Also, because of the relatively large volume of tissue treated and the need to balance application of RF current with surface cooling, this RF tissue remodeling approach does not permit fine control of damage patterns and subsequent skin tightening. This type of RF technique is monopolar, relying on a remote grounding of the patient to complete the current flow from the single electrode. The current in monopolar applications must flow through the patient's body to the remote ground, which can lead to unwanted electrical stimulation of other parts of the body. In contrast, bipolar instruments conduct the current between two relatively nearby electrodes through a more localized pathway.
In view of the shortcomings of the above methods of dermatological treatment and tissue remodeling, there is a need to provide a procedure and apparatus that combine safe and effective treatment for tissue remodeling, skin tightening, and wrinkle removal with minimal side effects, such as intra-procedural discomfort, post-procedural discomfort, lengthy healing time, and post-procedural infection.
Citation or identification of any document in this application is not an admission that such document is available as prior art to the present invention.